The present invention relates to a protective sleeve for use with a fiberscope, a videoscope or the like, and in particular to a protective sleeve that will permit the safe insertion of the probe of such a device into a high pressure or high/ultra-high vacuum environments.
There are many manufacturing processes carried on in a high pressure environment, or in high/ultra-high vacuum environments, in which it would be advantageous to observe from the outside of such pressurized or vacuum environments the progress of the manufacturing process underway. Examples, offered without intending any limitation on the uses to which the present invention may be put, involve MBE technology, vacuum brazing, autoclave monitoring, or in situ spectroscopy.
The only option formerly available to one wishing to inspect such processes underway was through the naked eye via an observation window, if present, in a wall of the pressure or vacuum chamber.
An improvement over that disadvantageous method was offered by U.S. Pat. No. 4,209,228 assigned on its face to Machida Endoscope Co., Ltd. of Tokyo, Japan. According to that patent, means are provided in the probe and/or the soope body proper to equalize the inner and exterior pressures of the hermitioally sealed scope when the probe is inserted into a high pressure environment. A disadvantage of tho embodiments disclosed in the foregoing patent is the need to burden the construction of the probe and/or scope body with pressure equalizing means. The patent also only addresses high pressure environments, and does not address the heretofore recognized need to inspect high or ultra-high vacuum environments.
Accordingly, it is among the objects of the present invention to provide apparatus to permit the inspection, or monitoring of events therein, of the interiors of high pressure, and high/ultra-high vacuum environments, and to permit such inspections or monitoring with a conventional fiberscope or videoscope without the need for the pressure-equalizing means of the above-described patent.